Thabo Mbeki is one, we know that for a fact. We know that the term African is now used to describe a certain segment of our society. That's not right, it's not a segment - it's a racial classification. It's rather an unfortunate classification because it is built on a certain perception and not a matter of fact. The drafters of the early BEE codes decided to define black as African, Coloured and Indians who are effectively South Africans by birth or descent. They had to do this because they realised that by 2012 they could no longer rely on the definition of historically disadvantaged individuals (or South Africans as the case may be) because this definition anchored on who had the vote or suffered discrimination before April 1994. Those born after April 1994 would be eligible for the vote in 2012 and it was therefore impossible for them to vote before April 1994. This group of people would then no longer be regarded as HDI/HDSA and hence would no longer be favoured under BEE and EE legislation. They had to use African. It might have been easier to have used the word Bantu – which was very popular within the grey-shoed corridors of the Apartheid administration. Wikipedia explains why the term Bantu might not have made the grade here
In the 1920s relatively liberal white South Africans, missionaries and the small black intelligentsia began to use the term "Bantu" in preference to "Native" and more derogatory terms to refer collectively to Bantu-speaking South Africans. After World War II, the racialist National Party governments adopted that usage officially, while the growing African nationalist movement and its liberal white allies turned to the term "African" instead, so that "Bantu" became identified with the policies of apartheid. By the 1970s this so discredited "Bantu" as an ethno-racial designation that the apartheid government switched to the term "Black" in its official racial categorizations, restricting it to Bantu-speaking Africans, at about the same time that the Black Consciousness Movement led by Steve Biko and others were defining "Black" to mean all racially oppressed South Africans (Africans, Coloureds and Indians).
It was Steve Biko who opted for the word Black as opposed to Bantu. So we all understand the term African to mean a type of black person. But there are problems with this. Webster's defines African as
- a native or inhabitant of Africa
- a person and especially a black person of African ancestry
But it was Mbeki who helped us put the term African into perspective. On the 18th of May 1996 he made the famous "I am an African" speech. Here is a very précised version of the speech
On an occasion such as this, we should, perhaps, start from the beginning. So, let me begin.
I am an African.
I owe my being to the Khoi and the San whose desolate souls haunt the great expanses of the beautiful Cape
I am formed of the migrants who left Europe to find a new home on our native land. Whatever their own actions, they remain still, part of me.
I am the grandchild of the warrior men and women that Hintsa and Sekhukhune led, the patriots that Cetshwayo and Mphephu took to battle, the soldiers Moshoeshoe and Ngungunyane taught never to dishonour the cause of freedom.
I am the grandchild who lays fresh flowers on the Boer graves at St Helena and the Bahamas, who sees in the mind's eye and suffers the suffering of a simple peasant folk, death, concentration camps, destroyed homesteads, a dream in ruins.
I am the child of Nongqause. I am he who made it possible to trade in the world markets in diamonds, in gold, in the same food for which my stomach yearns.
I come of those who were transported from India and China, who's being resided in the fact, solely, that they were able to provide physical labour, who taught me that we could both be at home and be foreign, who taught me that human existence itself demanded that freedom was a necessary condition for that human existence.
Being part of all these people, and in the knowledge that none dare contest that assertion, I shall claim that - I am an African
His speech encompasses almost every person that you and I might know who lives within the borders of South Africa (it might be only Radovan who has been excluded from this definition). Then you take the African National Congress whose manifesto makes for somewhat amusing reading. It was only in its very early days that it defined its membership as Native (which was and still is a derogatory term for black people). There is no way that the ANC limits itself to African membership (as defined by the amended BEE Act). African for the ANC is a term for South African voters who wish to join that party.
Let's take me as an example. I can trace my South African roots back a few hundred years. I have a South African passport and the only close relative of mine who might be able to get her hands on the coloniser's passport is my mother. I am not eligible for one. My ancestors were migrants who left Europe to make this country their home. In fact coming from Dutch descent my family too were colonised by the English in the 1800s.
Let us now consider Rob's disgusting new codes. The definition of black remains the same but he states that a 100% black-owned business turning over less than R50m need only sign a declaration that they are 100% black owned. But black encompasses African – and African by definition cannot be limited to a type of black person. What I am now advocating is that all those companies/entities who fulfil the definition of QSE and are African (as per Mbeki's definition) owned start making use of the new codes. What you would want to do is sign an affidavit stating that your company is 100% African owned (as permitted by the Constitution of South Africa) and that your turnover is less than R50m. If you have any African female ownership state this as well. Don't call it a BEE certificate, call it a certificate of ownership and turnover. Also it is strongly discouraged for you to state in the affidavit that you are a level 1 contributor because that's not really true (unless of course you are black). Leave this to the reader to figure out.
This will wreak absolute havoc that frankly the DTI deserves to deal with.
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